Chapter 2: Hunger Beneath a Dying Sky
Darkness.
Not the comforting black of sleep nor the quiet calm of midnight skies. But a suffocating, ancient dark — thick with the scent of blood and decay. The kind of dark that predators crawl within, where titanic horrors roam, and the earth itself recoils in fear.
Malvark's eyes opened.
Twin pits of endless void, rimmed in ancient gold, reflecting neither starlight nor mercy. The world around him was a twisted wilderness, where trees rose like mountains, their branches the size of rivers, where creatures of impossible size slithered through canyons and soared between crimson clouds.
The soil bled. The stones breathed. The wind shrieked as if remembering some ancient terror.
And in the distance, the sun hung low — not a nurturing star, but a baleful, rotting sphere of dying light, its glow sickly, like a diseased god watching from afar.
The Wood Dragon moved.
Massive limbs, carved from twisted, living wood, each motion causing the ground to crack and split. Scales like obsidian bark shimmered in the dim glow. From his nostrils poured thick black mist, a vapor born of death and malice, tainting the air.
He did not roar. Not yet.
There was no need for declarations.
This was not a world of politics or courts, not a realm of kings and nobles. Here, only power spoke. And Malvark had spoken in aeons past with the language of annihilation.
Though memories remained buried, instinct lingered.
The first scent reached him.
A fetid stench of blood, old and fresh, thick in the cloying air. Massive paw prints, each large enough to drown cities, marred the crimson soil nearby. A predator.
A challenge.
Hunger gnawed. Not the petty craving of beasts for meat, but the deeper, ancient ache of dominion. To crush, devour, and rise.
The Evolution System flickered within him — not a voice, but a pulse, a heartbeat echoing through his very marrow.
[Prey Detected.]
[Category: Dread Beast — Plaguehowler Titan.]
[Estimated Mass: 7.2 million tons.]
[Recommended Action: Devour.]
He moved, leaving behind craters with every step. The trees, sensing his presence, twisted away, their ancient roots writhing like worms to flee his path. The earth itself shuddered. Mountains groaned.
The world remembered.
And that was a dangerous thing.
The prey appeared soon — a grotesque, bloated titan of pale, pustule-covered flesh, its body swarming with parasitic worms the size of whales. Three skull-faced heads jutted from a mountainous torso, each maw dripping acidic ichor. Its breath was a plague wind, carrying the screams of countless devoured creatures.
The Plaguehowler Titan.
A lesser horror, yet a god in its own right within this land of monsters.
It sensed him, turned, three heads howling, the sound a choir of madness and ancient hunger.
Malvark did not hesitate.
His tail, a living battering ram of ironwood and void-forged bone, lashed out. The air screamed, the ground cracked, and the beast was sent careening through a canyon wall, the impact collapsing mountains and sending up a plume of red dust that blotted out the dying sun.
The system pulsed again.
[Strike Successful.]
[Adaptive Mutation Available.]
But there was no pause.
Malvark was upon the beast before its three heads could rise, his jaws clamping down on one bloated throat, tearing flesh, spilling rivers of black ichor that sizzled against the earth. He consumed — not merely meat and blood, but essence. A concept devourer.
He tasted plague. Despair. The accumulated sins of a thousand eras.
And it strengthened him.
His scales darkened, obsidian shifting to a deeper black that seemed to drink in the scant light. His breath mist thickened, now laced with plague spores and death essence.
The titan shrieked, one head torn away, its body writhing, limbs flailing like a dying world.
Malvark's claws drove into its chest, cracking the bone-plate, peeling back ancient armor like brittle wood. Another head snapped forward — teeth meeting scales that refused to break.
The dragon's eyes burned.
A single word formed in his mind.
[Consume.]
His throat opened, and a blast of sickly green fire — no ordinary flame, but a concentrated wave of rot and death-force — poured forth. The Plaguehowler's remaining heads were seared away, flesh melting, eyes popping in their sockets. Its vast form convulsed, rivers of liquified organs spilling into the earth.
Then stillness.
The wilderness around them held its breath.
For countless eons, the Plaguehowler had ruled these lands, a god among monsters. Its death was not a simple event — it was a rupture in the world's fragile balance.
And now… silence.
Malvark stood amidst the ruin, his breath thick mist, his body radiating a malevolence that made even the distant titans pause in their eternal slaughters.
The system chimed.
[Dread Beast Consumed.]
[Mass Absorption: Complete.]
[Mutations Unlocked:]
Plague Core: Breath weapon enhanced. Carries virulent rot capable of corroding flesh, stone, and lesser energies.
Death Essence Glands: Ambient aura of death intensifies. Lesser beasts instinctively flee or submit.
Bloodsoil Regeneration: Contact with bloodied earth accelerates wound recovery by 500%.
Malvark exhaled, mist spreading like a living storm, poisoning the land for miles. The blood-soaked soil beneath his feet shifted, roots drinking deep, his flesh mending from minor wounds already. Power swelled.
But it was not enough.
A taste.
A whisper of what once was.
The sky rumbled. Not thunder. Not storm. But something older.
A disturbance in the world's fabric. The death of a dread titan was not unseen. It would draw others. Rival beasts. Curious gods. Maybe even fragments of the Game Master's attention.
Good.
Let them come.
Let them crawl from their lairs and ancient temples.
He would devour them all.
Far to the north, a continent-sized predator stirred in its sleep, sensing the rupture. In the distant skies, an ancient war-devil opened its third eye. In forgotten ruins, a dead god's bones shivered.
The board shifted.
And Malvark, reborn in wood, blood, and ruin, lifted his gaze to the rotting sun.
A hunger infinite.
A dominion inevitable.
The void-born tyrant had returned.
And the game would never be the same.